Democrats share the blame for Bush’s war

In the next few weeks, President Bush should deliver a speech along these lines…

My fellow Americans:

March 2007 marks the fourth anniversary of the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom’s final outcome remains a mystery. But despite the chaos on TV every evening, and the challenges that emerge every morning, this effort has yielded plenty of good. America and its allies deposed a bloodthirsty despot who dispatched 300,000 of his constituents to mass graves. Saddam Hussein now occupies his own grave and no longer threatens his countrymen and neighbors.

Hussein’s general store for Islamofascist terrorists now is kaput, as is the Baathist state that had used and still possessed weapons of mass death, though in smaller quantities than we expected. While we never found warehouses full of WMDs, we did discover a vial of live botulinum, a seven-pound block of cyanide salt, 500 artillery shells filled with mustard gas and sarin nerve agent, and 1.77 metric tons (3,894 pounds) of low-enriched uranium.

Also, if Baghdad’s elected officials can restore stability, a free and prosperous Iraq could inspire beleaguered Middle Easterners to demand as much from their governments.

What we have accomplished and are attempting deserves the thanks of international coalition forces that fight beside Americans in uniform. In turn, their valor and sacrifice of life and limb deeply move this grateful nation.

I also want to thank several brave Democrats who helped get us here today.

— “Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people, even his own family members, to maintain his iron grip on power,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton , D-N.Y., said while debating the Iraq War resolution in October 2002. “He used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and on Iranians, killing over 20,000 people.”

Hussein, Clinton added, “has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.”

Clinton was correct. Saddam Hussein sprayed poison gas on his own people and sprayed cash on terrorists from the West Bank to West Street. After al Qaeda’s February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Saddam Hussein gave Iraqi Abdul Rahman Yasin a house and a stipend in Baghdad. Yasin built the bomb that rocked the Twin Towers, killing six and injuring 1,040.

Clinton was absolutely right back then. I thank her for her leadership and for giving me the authority to unseat this butcher.

— “It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world.”

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was justified in saying this. Hussein invaded Iran and Kuwait. He was a highly destabilizing force. Sen. Kerry was astute to recognize this danger, and I thank him for empowering me to neutralize this global menace.

— As then-Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., said back then: Hussein had “violated the cease-fire agreement. The reality is that we can’t allow him to continue on the track he is. And I also believe that we can’t be secure, and the region can’t be secure, as long as he’s still in power.”

Sen. Edwards was on the money. Almost daily, Hussein shot at U.S. and allied military aircraft patrolling over Iraq. Regional peace likely was impossible while Hussein paid $25,000 bonuses to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers who blasted themselves apart on buses in Jerusalem and cafes in Tel Aviv.

I thank Sen. Edwards for his wisdom, and for his vote to unplug this thug.

These three, and 26 other Senate Democrats, joined 82 House Democrats to permit this conflict. Unreliable as it may have been regarding the scope of Hussein’s WMDs, they accepted the intelligence I honestly and sincerely shared with them. In March 2005, the Silverman/Robb Commission said it “found no evidence of ‘politicization’ of the intelligence community’s assessments concerning Iraq’s reported WMD programs.”

Let me thank these three Democrats, and the others who voted to remove Saddam Hussein, for their courage and support as America decided to liberate Iraq. What happens next over there is unclear. What we do know is that this is my war — and it’s their war, too.

(New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.murdock(at)gmail.com.)

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Some of them cared about the Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths Saddam was responsible for.

Some of them cared about the Mass Graves.

Some of them cared about Baathist Tactics, like chopping up children in front of their parents and throwing their body parts off a tower, before chopping up the mother and finally father, videotaping it all as an example to other disobedient Iraqis.

Some of them cared about how Iraq never stopped firing after the cease fire, continuing to fire at American aircraft, set up scud launchers and attempt assassinations.

Some of them cared about Saddam financing Terrorism, even if it was terrorism aimed at Israeli Civilians instead of New Yorkers and no blaming Israelis for being infidels in the middle of the great Islamic sea is not a valid counter argument.

Some of them might have even cared if Iraq failed to comply with the terms of the cease fire by hiding rather than disposing of the many unconventional weapons they had and yes there were plenty of them and even one negated the cease fire agreement.

One Binary Sarin Canister Means There Were Not No WMDs.

One Binary Sarin Canister Means There Was At Least One WMD.

500 WMDs Means there were 500 WMDs.

2 Tons of WMDs means there were 2 Tons of WMDs.

No, Implies None, Zero, Nothing. Nothing, is clearly false and repeating it enough times will not make it true, even if Goebbels said so.

After the next election, if America decides to stick its head back in the sand, I am sure there will be many huge terrorist attacks in America and I am sure most of the victims, will be Democrats.